The Hip Replacements had a gig today: the Memory Cafe in Surprise. We have played for these folks before, and they are an appreciative audience.
They held their get-together in a different room today: bigger, with much higher ceilings. I didn't find out about the change until yesterday, so we brought additional gear to fill the room with sound (not knowing what the situation would be). As it worked out, my Bose L1c and S1 Pro were enough to cover the gig.
While it is supposed to be for their listening enjoyment, quite a few in the crowd got up to dance. Some photos that Joan took...
This version of the Hip Replacements is: Ron, me, Mark, and Podge (left to right in the photos). In the bottom two photos, the guy playing the bongos (second from the left) is not part of the group, but one of the "VIPs" who asked Ron if he could sit in with us on the last song. We aim to please.
Now, about the title of this post: this situation is from 10:30 'til just before noon. We did our sound check around 10:00 - people were getting seats and applauding. "Thanks, folks - we'll be playing for real in a half hour or so."
We got started about 10 minutes late - not because of us: they were making announcements. The room is tall (kind of an atrium(ish) thing) and a lot of hard surfaces. We got the sound set, then kicked back until it was our time. Ron on percussion, mandolin, guitar and vocals, Mark on guitar and vocals, Podge on bass and vocals, and me on guitar and vocals. We planned a mix of easy listening rock - the crowd seemed to be enjoying the more rocking songs, so that's the direction we went. More than enough songs on the set list (a bunch we didn't get to).
Afterwards, we met Mark and Cindy at BJ's (on the way home for all of us). I joked with Joan as we discussed how it went, then "Let's get something to eat). Back in the good ol' days when playing out, the meal afterwards was sometime after midnight... with this gig, we were on our way to the restaurant shortly after noon. ;-)
2 comments:
Sounds good and typical. There is always some challenge, and one has to be ready for anything at a gig.
My running joke at senior centers is: We are a 60's band. We don't play any music from that decade, but we all qualify for Medicare.
Then I guess we are a "70s band." ;-) I am no longer the youngest in the group, as Podge is a couple years younger than I am. But, for the record, we play music from the 60s to the 2020s.
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